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By Eddie Paskey - 18 Years Ago
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Good Mornin' All;; Wanting to increase my exhaust size.. 55 Bird-292-C4-Blue Thunder. Would like to go to 2 or 2 1/2 in. What frames mods will be needed-- what about mufflers--don't want too much rap??? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Have rack and pinion ordered from wurthit so headers will come later, when I see how muchroom I have, will be putting in Flaming River Col, at same time. Thanks to all you guys for such a willingness to share your vast knowledge and everyone BEHAVE-- especially Lon Many Thanks Eddie
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By Hoosier Hurricane - 18 Years Ago
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Eddie: Your stock exhaust pipes are 2" back to the mufflers, then 1 3/4" the rest of the way. I would think a muffler shop could bend up a set of 2" tail pipes and install some 2" in and 2"out mufflers. I doubt if there would be a clearance problem with 2" tailpipes, although I sure would be tempted to make them exit below the bumper instead of through the bumper guards. Back when parts houses still sold ready made tailpipes, I found that '55 Ford tailpipes, swapped side for side and turned end for end, bolted into my '56 Bird, but exited below the bumper instead of through it. Now '56 Customline police cars used 2" tailpipes and no bumper exhaust ports, so if you could find a muffler shop with a program for their bender for these pipes, it would be a piece of cake. A lot of muffler shop guys are pretty skilled at taking a sample pipe and bending a new one to match. Fastinating to watch them. John
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By Eddie Paskey - 18 Years Ago
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Thanks John; Did not know about the front pipes as compared to the tail pipes. Do you think the tail pipe only will give me any additional power? What are you running on your Bird? Again many thanks. God Bless Eddie
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By GREENBIRD56 - 18 Years Ago
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In a (much earlier) post Al Frakes mentioned an arrangement whereby the two mufflers were moved back to the T-bird resonator position. This gets a hot item out from underfoot and even makes it possible to wrap the pipes in sound/temp insulation in the floorboard area of the car. It also might provide a means to get a crossover in there before the mufflers which would lower the total back pressure, cut the noise level - and still maybe leave the famous Y "thump factor" for those who know?
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By Hoosier Hurricane - 18 Years Ago
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Eddie: I have stock exhaust system sizes on both my Birds, but neither are routed through the bumper as original. Eats up the chrome. John
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By bird55 - 18 Years Ago
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AZ28 (4/2/2007)
In a (much earlier) post Al Frakes mentioned an arrangement whereby the two mufflers were moved back to the T-bird resonator position. This gets a hot item out from underfootand even makes it possible to wrap the pipes in sound/temp insulation in the floorboard area of the car.
Here is some pics of what I did. The floorboards stay Much,Much cooler. I used 2" pipe and had the muffler shop do the whole thing. It went really smoothly. Any more than 2" and you may start runniing into some clearance issues. Another important point about the muffler location is that you will find that most mufflers won't fit the original opening in the xframe. Most just won't go in there, unless it's the old glasspacs or stock.  If you move up to 2" or above for the inlet and outlets as I did they can be set back like a '56 bird resonators position. I used the flowmasters. They are louder, but not too much. But I also have FPT headers so that also affects the sound. 
One other note is you said you were going to change out the PS with a wurthit setup. His setup will not fit with the headers I chose. But that was OK with me my PS oldstyle works great (All freshly rebuilt) So you'll have to forgo- IMHO the good headers if you go for the R and P. To me I had to go with the headers.
I also kept the 2" pipe routed out the bumper, but you'll have to mod the hanger inside the bumperette. They will rust em out- but I just try to keep an eye on it and keep everything cleaned off. The pipes fit better than the pics show , the engines out so they are kinda laying on the frame.
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By Eddie Paskey - 18 Years Ago
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Thanks to all. Think I will try the resonator type and try for a crossover pipe?? Yeah I believe I will go under the bumper with the outlets, but use the tips only in the original posistion,just for looks. Also the pictures are great, only wish I knew how to post pictures, I'm not to good with the computor. Thank you all for the knowledge God Bless Eddie
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By GREENBIRD56 - 18 Years Ago
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Al Frakes - a note for you - many thanks for the photos of your system - it explains tons of what I wanted to know before starting down this road. I'm hoping an "H" pipe will fit across where the two pipes exit the last X-member? Could form it back a bit into the "vee". Two items I'd like to know if you don't mind all these questions - are the 2" pipe Flowmaster mufflers the 40 series "offset inlet/offset outlet type? They would then be the shorty 13 inch can length too? If they are the shorties - do you think the space will allow a 50 series that has a 4 inch longer can? I was thinking that adding the "H" pipe - and the longer muffler would get the sound down where I like it - but it may just be too much to stuff into the space allowed.
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By pegleg - 18 Years Ago
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Steve, I don't know what his answer will be, but if you have room try for a three chamber Flowmaster. I have them on the red car and you can still hear it. Two chambers are LOUD.
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By bird55 - 18 Years Ago
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You guys got me thinking on this so I went back and measured and checked my paperwork. 40 series. I used part #42041 with both 2" on in and outs. they are 4' thick and 9.75 wide by13" case length with 19" overall length. That's where it makes a difference to keep it all tucked up in there. you don't want to get the bends to tight. It seems like I tried the 50 series, but they were 4" longer overall. If you can find a good muffler man that will work with it, you might could swing it. I didn't like the looks of it. I just didn't want to push the envelope that much. And I didn't want to go to all this trouble and have it sound to stock. About the H pipe. I hope you can get it to work I just couldn't with that pesky driveshaft in the way! There was just nowhere for it. The noise level for me is OK. You can use dynomat insulation or the like in the floor. Althought I didn't. I think it's kind of like when I sold my open pipe 67 Truimph scrambler. When interested buyers asked how loud it was? i said- "your wife an neighbors will hate it, but your girlfriends gonna love it.
You could mock up a cardboard muffler with the various inlets set like you want and hold it up there to experiment, if you look on flowmasters website they show all the options for the in and out positions, and pipe dimensions so that might help you gain space for the h pipe. Let me know. In hindsite I probably could have used 2.25" pipe overall. But in the big picture I don't know how much it would help on performance or the h pipe for that matter.
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By GREENBIRD56 - 18 Years Ago
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Thanks again for the replies guys - the "H" pipe worked on an old Jeep pickup I had for awhile. It had a big block 402 chebbie and ran a couple of cheapie "turbo mufflers" side for side to start out - my kid loved it, wife hated it. It kind of mellowed down with the crossover added. My current 442 has an "X" pipe in it and it supposedly works better than the "H" - but who's gonna pay for a test? Would never fit in the T-bird anyway ....but the "H" maybe by combining with Al's method. The two theories I know of say (1) the joining of the two pipes cuts total backpressure seen by the firing cylinder and (2) the sound energy of each firing cylinder is dissipated by total internal volume of the joined system. I believe Chrysler put them in their production V8 cars first - but eventually they were in just about everything with V8 dual exhaust.
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By charliemccraney - 18 Years Ago
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How big are those two square holes in the X. One of the arrows for the old muffler location is kind of pointing to one of them. Could a cross pipe fit there? Or maybe just in front of the mufflers - keep it close to the floor pan to avoid the drive shaft. As I understand it, The exhaust does not actually flow through an H-pipe. It just balances the pressures between the two banks. If this is right, Why not run it under the transmission and flatten the pipe so that a minimal amount of clearance is lost. Can it fit over or under the slip yoke to avoid hitting the driveshaft? Under the tailshaft? Is there any room between the transmission and oil pan?
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By GREENBIRD56 - 18 Years Ago
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Charlie - it looks to me like the driveshaft is so much higher than the location where the pipes come out of the rear crossmember, the crossover will only have to bow a bit forward to get all the clearance I'd need. Somewhere I've collected up a picture of a bird with the body off and the engine, tranny, driveline,and exhaust all assembled. The tailshaft of the tranny is way up there (over the crossmember "x" point) and there is only so much sag available in the rear leafs.
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By charliemccraney - 18 Years Ago
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Oh, ok. I was wondering where all that stuff went under there. The space above the X isn't too apparent in the picture. Seems like that is perfect, then.
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By GREENBIRD56 - 18 Years Ago
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I hate to even show this clunker in these guy's thread. When the body is off - a T-bird looks considerably different than you would picture. The engine and tranny are up on top of the frame rails and considerably set back. The front spark plug is high enough and far enough back of the front spindle to be a gasser. The bodies are "channeled" down over the frame rails - you know the phrase - "Ford roadsters rule"............. Ford didn't quit building them in '36. If you cut the huge crossmembers out, replaced that portion with one of the modern chassis designer's tube structures and lowered the engine and tranny down - you could literally put a plastic Cobra body on there and no-one would catch you (until it went around a corner). Corvettes with a 283 would not be a problem for a tight 312. 
This stripper still has the mufflers and resonators in there - it helps make more sense of Al's pictures. The Flowmaster 40's could almost stand on edge where the resonators are - just don't know if you could sneak another 4 inches of length for a 50 series. This looks like the "H" pipe is a definite possibility - just bow it forward a bit. The '57 tail pipes come off the top of the resonators, hop the axle tube and go diagonally right out behind the wheel (who says engineers are tough to teach?). The tailpipe schemes for the '55 and '56 are not so clean.
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